An iron bar was buried with Sozopol’s toothless “vampire skeleton” to prevent it from emerging from the grave.

In 2014, archaeologists discovered many tombs containing skeletons with wooden or iron rods pierced into the chest cavities. Some of the tombs were older than the Middle Ages. However, Bulgarian historians claimed that the practice of nailing the dead with rods was common in some villages until the first decade of the 20th century.

The belief that the villagers had was that it would prevent the dead from rising at midnight and terrorizing everyone. For the villagers, sinking an iron bar was not the only way to kill a vampire. They also pulled out the skeleton’s teeth.

Evidence of extracted teeth was found in a 700-year-old toothless skeleton found in the ruins of a church in Sozopol. The skeleton had also been stabbed with an iron bar.

The skeletons and superstition about vampires in the area eventually led Bram Stoker to write about his famous fictional character, Dracula, in 1897.

As for the Bulgarian vampire skeletons, historians still consider the origin of the superstition a mystery.